Month: September 2014

This is an artwork which I created as my graduation project for Marmara University-Istanbul. Digitalizing a classic artwork always excites me. While I was working on Microsoft Kinect that idea appeared in my mind. How great it would be to see unpainted areas in Van Gogh’s Bedroom painting. After the graduation exhibition in Marmara University, it also exhibited in amberFest 13′.

This work looks quite complicated but actually it is one of the simplest projects that I made.

I started by searching how to adding skeleton data taken by kinect into a Unity 3D project. I found a sdk which is released by Microsoft for Unity. You can download it from website below.

You will need to install kinect developer toolkit and kinect SDK too. Just after the download has finished, open the Unity3D and run “Kinect1.7UnityPackage.unitypackage”. Make sure all the packages are selected then press import. This will import a package consist of some codes and an example project.

We can work inside the example project by modifying it. When you import all the package you will see KinectSample in the Project window below. Full path is Assets>Scene>KinectSample.

To create the feeling of looking at inside the picture I decided to create a main camera with a target point which is always looked at. Because if you dont use a target point the camera always look the same direction.

I found this code from reference tab from Unity3D’s website.

var target : Transform;

function Update() {
transform.LookAt(target);
}

I copied and pasted this codes as a javascript code in Unity and simply linked it into the camera by dragging and droping. You can create a Java Script file by right clicking in the project window and create>Javascript. You must see the component in inspector menu when you select the camera. Then I created a cube front of the camera for the target and attached it to the “target tag” of the component that i just created inside the camera. You can reach the target tag inside the inspector menu and you can add an object by clicking the circle beside it.

The distance between the camera and the target point is important to make the movement more natural. But it depends on the project.

Second, I attached the camera to the “03_Head” inside the “KinectPointMan”. The project has 2 skeleton. rainbowMan_v06 and KinectPointMan. I used “PointMan” because the other one vibrating the camera while Point man is smoother.

To finalize the project delete the “rainbow man” which we didn’t use and move the camera until the KinectPointMan disappears from the screen. Then you can create your own scene to look inside. I would love to share my 3D model for Van Gogh’s bedroom but unfortunately it was erased with many project which I didn’t sync to cloud after the burned hard disc disaster.

I created a couple of cubes to realize the movement as you can see below. I preserved the skeleton just to show you my body movements.

This is a very short part of the video teaser of Şekermeker – Sugarmugar which is a game going to be released soon for Android and IOS. The game will be published by Codemodeon Game Studio which is I’am currently working as an art director. I will explain you how I created the teaser video with basic tools in After Effects.The characters in the video are exactly the same images as the one in the game. I started with seperating the joints and moveable parts of the characters such as legs, arms, eyes, eyebrow, head. Then I exported them to After Effects layer by layer.

After I get my images in the project panel next step is to create a new composition. I used the values below.

Next, drag and drop the images that insinde the project panel to composition panel below. The images will be over and over not accurately. So I needed to move the individual parts to the actual places.

The woman doesn’t have a mouth as you see above. That because the mouth needs to be created in After Effects as a vector. So we can move the control points to animate it look like she is speaking.

I created the mouth like above by using Pen tool. I made only 4 control point, so it is a very simple mouth. Pen tool must be used after creating a new shape layer. Otherwise it will react as if a mask.

To create motion I made a tween for the Shape Layer 1>Contents>Shape1>Path1. Its a very long path but easy when you familiar to it. After Effects works with keyframes. I presume that you alredy know how it works so I will not explain it.

To animate joints, I used puppet tool. It is a very usefull tool in After Effects. It lets us define joints and move them by click an release.

A usefull tip: you can Ctrl+click to a joint to make a realtime animation. If you click ctrl while you already clicked to puppet tool you will realize the cursor will be a clock. So it is ready to animate. Animation starts from the current time until the end of the composition time.

If you dont have a character, you can experience it with simple objects like boxes etc. Puppet tool is great for cartoon animations. It is simple but the result satisfies.

In this tutorial I want to show you how I created the little alien who is wearing oculus rift at left side. I created this character for the banner above which is I made for the company I am currently working for. I seperated the tutorial to a few steps.

Before The Start

I had to let the audience understand that we are basically working on virtual reality by using Oculus Rift in our products.

Oculus is a very magical tool to amaze people. And it seems like little bit futuristic. Hence, I decided to create aliens who are wearing Oculus Rift and looks amazed by it.

Drawing of Oculus Rift is easy part of this tutorial. I only paid attention to make it more understandable and recognizable. Due to my alien has 6 eyes, he wears 3 goggles’.

Drawing Hands

This step is a little bit advanced. To see this forms of hands, you may need some basic drawing courses. I made a couple quick sketches above. They are not great but always help.

I am giving the shadows and highlights according to the light I imagined before I’ve started. Upper sides are bright and lower sides are darker. It perceived like it is volumed.

Facial Expressions

This is an advanced step too. I collected mouth shapes above which I used on the other characters in the banner to make it clearer. However it is not enough to understand facial expressions. You will need to observe a lot. Even masters still observe.

When the first time I ever wear Oculus Rift basically I felt anxiety, amazement and mind blow. I tried to express this feeling upon that characters. First character above worried, second one is amazed and the last ones mind has blown.

Details

Its always good to have some details like volumes, shadows, highlights and reflections in your illustrations. It makes the artwork looks better. And always keep in mind to be consistent when you draw the shadows and highlights. Best way to work on lighting is deciding the imaginary light source before painting the shapes. This will be very helpful.